China on Tuesday started to allow individuals to apply for ".cn" and ".中國(guó)" (China)?domain names, said the China Internet Network Information Center, the de facto administrator of the country’s domain names.

"Any individual or organization that can carry independent civil liabilities has the right to apply for the domain registration under the implementing rules," said CNNIC in an announcement released on Monday afternoon.

CNNIC stopped accepting individual applications for the nation’s top-level domain names in December 2009 because a large number of them were used to distribute illegal material such as pornography and gambling sites.

The Ministry of Public Security has launched a series of campaigns targeting cyber crimes since then.

"Individuals will become the major drive for the development of websites in China," Xinhua News Agency reported, citing Qi Lin, vice-director of CNNIC. "Reopening the domain name registration right to individuals is expected to boost the openness and uniqueness of the Internet."

The nation had about 2.3 million websites by the end of 2011, up by 20 percent year-on-year, statistics from CNNIC showed.

gaoyuan@chinadaily.com.cn